The Quackometer

Dr James Colthurst and the Fenzian Machine


No, I haven't gone all Daily Express on you. There is a genuine Lady Di connection here. But first, the Daily Telegraph.

We are told (May 10, 2008) how a man had a bad knee and how 'laser acupuncture' made it better again. Time for the Quackometer to investigate.

So, why do alarm bells ring? The Telegraph reports,

Last year I heard about a new treatment, called Fenzian, and decided to give it a go. Pioneered by Eumedic, a Berkshire-based company, it involves a hand-held electronic device that is passed across the afflicted area imparting low-level electromagnetic impulses into the skin. It has been likened to a non-piercing form of acupuncture.

'Electronic devices' that look really scientific and impart 'electromagnetic' things to the body are readily found in the world of quackery. They usually do nothing but allow practitioners to take hefty fees from customers. Is the Fenzian one of these devices? We must look more.


Apparently, the machine works by,

open[ing] a dialogue between the damaged part and the central nervous system, enabling the body to target its own healing powers more effectively.

Now that could be just flowery journalistic uncomprehending language. But if it is what Eumedic claim, then we could be in a spot of bother. One thing I would like to know is what is being said in the dialogue and what language is being used. Unfortunately, I doubt we will find out.

The next worrying aspect is that Eumedic appear to be relying on testimonials. An over-reliance on testimonials ought to alert us to the possibility that quacks are using anecdotes to convince people that their treatments work. (Check out the All-American Sports Stars.) But things look better when it appears that there is an actual written-up study of the treatment with 600 patients involved. There might be real evidence that the Fenzian works. The Telegraph reports,

[The study] showed that most felt they had been “cured”, though this was less evident among the older ones and those who had had symptoms for more than six months.

And hopes may be dashed. If the Fenzian was useless then we might expect those with new symptoms to get better soon anyway, but those with more drawn out problems to continue to have them. Is this paper for real?

The paper, entitled A retrospective case note review of the Fenzian electrostimulation system: a novel non-invasive, non-pharmacological treatment, is by J. Colthurst and P. Giddings. The study was of 600 case notes from one clinic. It was asking if the patients seen at this self-referred, private clinic felt better after a visit. As such, we cannot tell from the study if the Fenzian had any effect whatsoever. It is perfectly possible that people got better anyway. There is no control group, so we simply do not know what the Fenzian did. The criticisms you could make of this paper are exactly the same as those made of the Bristol Homeopathy Study. Funnily enough, both papers report a 70% satisfaction rate.

The authors themselves note that "conclusions that can be drawn from the findings are limited." However, they go on to rather optimistically conclude, "these preliminary results are highly encouraging". I would add that if all 600 patients had paid the initial £350 as the Telegraph correspondent, followed by 15 follow up visits at £150 a pop, a more justified conclusion of this paper might be, "these preliminary results are highly financially encouraging".

My doubts grow even stronger when we note that the lead author of the paper, J. Colthurst, is the owner of the clinic and inventor of the Fenzian. So, the paper can hardly be looked upon as an independent review of the technique. More troubling aspects arise when I note that a Professor Kim Jobst helped with the paper. Jobst has turned up on the quackometer before as an advocate of the highly dubious qlink magic pendant.

More scary things are in the paper, such as the appeals to NASA/Military/Russian/Secret authority,

Research by the Soviet aerospace and military scientists found that rapid changes in skin electrical properties occurred during acupressure, and that the sites of valuable response often correlated with known acupuncture sites. Regrettably, because of the secretive culture of the Soviet military, none of this research was published.

Such claims are always highly doubtful and impossible to verify - but sound very impressive.

So, who is the inventor of the Fenzian and author of this paper? Dr James Colthurst MBBS; BSc; MBA; MFHom; FRCS(Ed) is an ex surgeon, educated at Eton and St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School, University of London. He is the second son of Sir Richard la Touche Colthurst, 9th Baronet Colthurst of Blarney Castle, and a capped English rower.

Colthurst is an intriguing character. Having the double misfortune of being second in line to the Baronetcy and loosing a bundle on the Lloyds markets, he found himself studying for a business degree (MBA) and then setting up a private clinic in Berkshire. Beyond his medical career, we find out that he was a close childhood friend of Diana and he turned out to be the paid for 'middle man', supplying the Diana tapes to Andrew Motion for the book that 'blew the lid off' the royal marriage.

Colthurst has a history of investment in alternative medicine. He is proud to claim that he is only the second surgeon to train in homeopathy and join the Faculty of Homeopaths and he only surgeon with an MBA. The Telegraph lists him as one of their Top 20 health gurus, just above Patrick Holford.

He also looks as if he has been dabbling in electronic gizmos for a while now. It is claimed he was one of the fist people to use the SCENAR device in the UK - a box remarkably similar to the Fenzian. The SCENAR was

developed by Russian scientists to ensure that cosmonauts stayed fighting fit as they floated in the stratosphere[sic].

Another user of the SCENAR, claims to be trained by Colthurst and says the device was,

developed in Russia in the 1970s to get wounded Soviet soldiers back on the battlefield as quickly as possible.

Marvelous.

In April this year, the Washington State Attorney General, Rob McKenna, wrote a letter to the US FDA to urge them to curb bogus medical devices such as the SCENAR. He said,

The sale and use of untested medical devices is a national problem. We encourage you to ban the manufacture, distribution and use of these dangerous devices, to step up enforcement against those who are taking consumers' money and risking their health.

Colthurst has other electronic device interests too. He runs a web site called muststopsmoking.com. For this service, you will be charged £250 and plugged into a Bioresonance device that "recognises the echoes of toxins and asks your body to 're-set' itself."

I must let you see the "Medical Description of Bioresonance" that is used to sell the service...

All substances have a resonant frequency. Even cells have resonant frequencies. These vary with different types and state of cells. Healthy cells have 'clear' harmonic waveforms. Unhealthy or damaged cells have disturbed waveforms. Toxic substances will disturb the waveform emanating from cells.

The 'output' signal from a cell can be considered as a resultant of the healthy cell waveform and the frequency of the toxic substance.

Bioresonance aims to measure the waveforms and to be able to separate disharmonic (toxic) waveforms from 'healthy' signals. A process of phase-cancellation is then used to counter the toxic waveforms. In addition, another process is used to amplify the healthy waveforms, thereby re-setting the cellular harmonics.

Gold standard pseudoscience.

Now, we have seen the Blarney-stone-kissing, gift-of-the-gab, silver-spoon-in-the-mouth, side of the family, but on his mother's side there is a more interesting relative. He is the great-grandson of Sir Almroth Wright who is something of a medical hero. Wright was an early pioneer of immunisation, inventing the process of autogenous vaccination preparation and was probably responsible for saving millions of lives through the development of the typhoid vaccine before the First World War. He worked with Alexander Flemming on the treatment and cleaning of wounds to prevent infection and battled fiercely with the 'Harley Street Ethos'. He campaigned to set up a government centralised fund for performing medical research so that it could be taken out of the hands of private practice. This action led Lloyd George to set up the Medical Research Committee (which later beacme the Medical Research Council).

Wright found many detractors, not least in George Bernard Shaw who lamented the passing of the art of medicine to the emerging power of scientific medicine typified by the attitude of Wright. Wright formed the basis of the character of Dr Colenso Ridgeon in George Bernard Shaw's satire The Doctor's Dilemma.

In a biography of Shaw by Hesketh Pearson, it is reported that,

Bernard Shaw called upon Sir Almroth Wright - a noted allopathic physician - to look into homeopathy. Wright expressed complete incredulity. Shaw remonstrated with him. "Look here," exclaimed Wright, "the thing is absurd and impossible; let me put it this way. Would you, Shaw, trouble to get out of your chair if I called from the next room, 'Do come in here and see what I have done - I have turned a pint of tea leaves into pure gold.'?" "Certainly I would," replied Shaw. "

Shaw's credulity stands in stark contrast to Wright's sceptical attitude. Homeopaths see Shaw's response as being more 'open minded'. Sceptics see it as an over willingness to believe in anything in the face of illogical nonsense. Indeed, Wright was supposed to have proposed that logic was formally taught to doctor's as part of their training. His ideas were ahead of their time and rejected.

I wonder what he would make of his descendant? My guess is that science may well have advanced, but society has not.

Labels: electromagnetic quackery, fenzian, qlink

 

Last June, I wrote about emerging company, Exradia, and their attempts to sell a magic mobile phone battery to the major handset manufacturers, such as Nokia and Sony Ericsson. Their replacement batteries are supposed to offer health benefits to their owners by jiggling around with the electrical currents in the battery. (Don't ask me - it's their theory.)

What was shocking about Exradia was they were not your usual flaky snake-oil merchants or slick charlatans; these were well connected and well funded business people who were out to do a professional and smooth job. However, this is is what I wrote:

My guess is that Exradia executives will spend a futile Summer camped in Sweden and Finland and, when it starts getting cold, the push into retail sales will begin. Even then, flogging magic batteries to the public is going to be hard work.

It looks like my prediction has come true. Of course the phone manufacturers did not want to know; anyone with a modicum of knowledge about the mobile industry could have predicted that. And selling a product's dubious health benefits to the public has always been a much easier task. And so, a push into the consumer market has begun. The old CEO is out, a new one in with new money, sales staff and tactics.

Out goes, James Fintain Lawler as CEO, a man with experience at Xerox and so knowledge of doing big deals between businesses, and in comes David G. Schick from Citigroup. Now until recently hiccaughs, Citi were seen as one of the greatest retail brands in the world. It is one of the few American banks that can claim to be a truly global brand, and is the largest company in the world. David was Senior Vice President of Citigroup’s Global Consumer Group, responsible for consumer sales and distribution strategies - just what you want if you need to hit the retail market hard.

So the management team is all lined up for flogging this stuff big time to the public. But what the team still appears to lack is anyone who might understand the science of what they are offering. And that is not a surprise, because scientifically, the Exradia magic batteries are a flight of fancy.

Let us remind ourselves of the pseudo-scientific talk that Exradia use about their batteries,

Living matter is composed of electrically charged particles that are in constant motion thereby generating electromagnetic fields. These EMFs form part of the natural electromagnetic background and are characterised by random both in time and space. Biological cells do not respond to these natural fields.

By contrast, cell phones and other digital wireless devices emit man-made EMFs that are constant in space over the dimensional scale of groups of biologically relevant frequencies. These regular or 'structured' EMFs have been shown to be bio-effective. One example of such an EMF is the pulsating RF signal produced by a GSM mobile phone

Central to their claims is their statement that somehow 'structured' electrical fields can somehow damage cells. This is far from being scientifically accepted. In fact, it is widely regarded as nonsense. There is a lot of claptrap out there being talked about 'information' carrying radiowaves being dangerous, with a lot of 'test tube' type experiments that claim to show an effect. Behind these studies are groups who appear to relish the idea that mobile phones can be dangerous. Exradia have been sponsoring their own studies and claim then that their technology has 'been proven to eliminate biological effects in all instances in which it has been tested in laboratory research'. But to an outsider, the research leaves many unanswered questions and looks highly implausible.

Exradia talk about 'protection from the known risks of EMFs', but elsewhere are the first to admit that mobiles have not been proven dangerous to health. Then they say that they offer the 'only solution that has been scientifically proven to neutralise, at its source, the potentially harmful biological effects of radiation emitted from mobile phones'. But no studies have been done on humans. And there are lots of weasel words around like 'may' and 'potentially'. I would be fascinated to see what an ASA panel or Trading Standards officer would make of it all.

So what are the new Exradia up to? Well, first, they have struck a deal with Maplins, a large electronics and hobbyist retailer in the UK. This is unlikely to satisfy their ambitions. Maplins customers are electronics enthusiasts. Fear of technology does not occur amongst their technophile customer base - and that is what Exradia want - fear that mobile phones will harm you.

If you want to use fear then you need to use a Daily Mail technique and 'think of the children' - and that is where Exradia are going next. They are re-branding their batteries as 'Angels^TM' and starting a full scale viral advertising campaign - hitting the likes of MySpace and Facebook - and so reaching out to their audience with kid-friendly branding. A new web-site has been launched, http://www.welcomeangels.com/, that offers competitions, downloads and other gimmicks to get the kids excited. All so very 21st Century and Web 2.0. But at the heart of this campaign is a rather nasty piece of market creation. No young person is going to buy an unnecessary and expensive battery when they already have one. You need to convince them somehow that their existing battery could be doing them harm. Basic marketing. Create a fear, a gap, a need. Offer a solution.

The basic flaw in this plan though is obvious. Despite being rather kid focused, young people will not respond to this sort of marketing. They are immortal and a fear of death will not motivate them. Just look at the failure of scare tactics against tobacco or drugs and the impossibility of signing an 18 year old up for life insurance or a pension. To make fear work, you need to get the parents - you need to get to the grown up somewhere.

And so, Exradia are spreading the fear though adult channels too. The ever compliant Independent newspaper have allowed Exradia Chief Executive Mr Schick to write and advertorial scare story,

There is incontrovertible evidence that wireless use has a biological effect on cells, which could be the first link in a chain leading to health problems.

Incontrovertible it may be that blasting cells with microwaves has an effect on them. But a plausible mechanism for initiating health problems at levels experience by mobile users? That is why he uses the word could.

And Exradia have been issuing press releases to coincide with the launch of the iPhone to say that users risk 'melting their brain' because the iPhone battery is not replaceable with a magic Exradia battery and so 'Apple has chosen to ignore this potential health issue'.

Personally, I find all this rather distasteful. It is a blatant attempt to cash in on people's inherent distrust of the unknown and their susceptibility to overrate unfamiliar risks. Mobiles do kill. But it is due to the humdrum risk of mobile using distracted road users. Kids can get hurt by mobiles - but this is much more likely to be as a side effect of bullying or during theft of a handset.

The big question is - will Exradia succeed? Again a prediction. They will not last out 2008. Maybe they will sling out the sales director in six months and try another last gasp at marketing. Much money is being pumped in, but patience will not last forever. And this market is hard. People love their mobiles and change them regularly. Their priority for new accessories for their phones are not magic batteries, but media cards, covers and downloads. Exradia have a Sisyphean task of keeping up with the never ending supply of new handsets and batteries. Lots have to sold to justify the R&D, testing and manufacturing logistics demanded by such rapidly changing technology. No start up, no matter how well funded, can burn cash for long without seeing prospects of huge sales. That is not going to happen for Exradia.

And, good grief! A whole blog entry without mentioning homeopaths. What is becoming of me?

Labels: electromagnetic quackery, exradia

 

Six meddlesome members of the public have complained to the Advertising Standards Authority that Clarins have been making untruthful, unsubstantiated and scaremongering claims about their E3P product. Previously, I wrote about this product and how it is making claims that it can protect against 'Artificial Electromagnetic Waves'. The claims made and the evidence given by Clarins were utter tosh.

Labels: cosmetics, electromagnetic quackery

 

Two classics from the Daily Mail today. An example of two types of quack story perpetuated by the media. Firstly, a good old scare story. Secondly, an unquestioning promotion of a quack remedy after a press release has been issued.

But first, the paper reports that Orange have removed a mobile phone mast from a tower block in Staple Hill, Bristol, after pressure has been put on by local residents. Apparently, over ten years seven people in the block have had cancer. Three have died. The block is now called the 'Tower of Doom'. It just has to be the mast. The rate of cancer is 10 times the average, whatever that means.

It is of course impossible that the cause has anything to do with the fact that, by the look of things, the tower is occupied by a fairly elderly and not too wealthy population. The tower block could also just be unlucky. The elderly residents also complain of headaches and 'other ailments'. Most unusual for old folk. Out with the pitchforks! Burn the mobile masts now!

What ever happened to the 'mustn't grumble' mentality that we expect of good old British grannies and granddads?

Next up, Israeli firm Brainsway are promoting their new magnetic hair dryer that can cure depression.

Labels: daily mail, electromagnetic quackery

 

The development of new forms of quackery continues with the publication of the latest research from the University of Essex showing yet again that mobile mast radiation was unlikely to be the cause of electrosensitivity. The excuses from the lobbies that support sufferers is piling in with a trend towards excommunication of those that failed the tests as being 'psycho cases' and so probably not worthy of support of the groups that first embraced them. What is building up quite nicely though, is ever more complex 'explanations' of what electrosensitivity is and how it is caused. It is getting quite difficult to pin anything down now and some fighting factions within the lobbies are now bound to emerge, with simple mast-induced illness on one side and the other, more complex explanations including 'information carrying' EMFs , and low frequency EMFs. Some of these explanations appear to be mutually exclusive and incompatible with each other.

This is generating quackfusion - a smog of confuddled quackery, obfuscation and confusion that allows the quacks to move in and take advantage. The quackometer has been following the growing list of dodgy products and services entering the market, and its getting bigger week by week.

The web site electrosensitivity.org, run by Troy Knight, has its own theories about cause.

Troy says,

There is a strong link between chemicals toxicity [sic] and electrical sensitivities, i.e. that the latter may well be a by-product of the former. The UK based Breakspear Hospital reports that when one removes the chemical sensitivities from the body, the electrical sensitivities disappear also.

It looks like the Breakspear needs a little investigation by the quackometer.

The Breakspear is a private hospital based near Hemel Hemstead in the UK. It is run by Dr Jean Monro and specialises in 'allergies and environemental illnesses'. The hospital boasts a pharmacy full of vitamin pills, which you can, of course, order online. It claims to treat autism spectrum disorders, food allergies and ME. It offers nutritional therapy, chelation therapy and single MMR jabs (with the option of a pre-injection detox). It will remove your dental amalgams, give you antigen vaccines (which we will have to look at later) and offers something called electromagnetic therapy.

Now, these sorts of conditions and treatments are often associated with quackery. For example, chelation therapy has been seriously criticised as a dangerous quack remedy for autism. An electrosensitive self-refering themselves here could risk dishing out thousands for absolutely worthless treatments. Is the Breakspear Hospital just a quack hospital? Let's look at one of the therapies on offer in a bit more detail.

The Breakspear gives details of a therapy is offers, unique in the UK by all accounts, called Electromagnetic Therapy. It is, of course, ironic that electromagnetic fields both cause all sorts of illness as well as cure all sorts of illness. But, Monro is quite specific about a number of conditions that she claims to be able to treat.

The web site starts off,

It is believed that pulsed electromagnetic fields are able to rectify the abnormal responses that people have to everyday food and chemical encounters. This is critical in the management of patients with chronic inflammatory disorders.

Now, the first sentence is noticeable for its use of weasel words. 'It is believed...'. We obviously have to ask, 'Who is it that believes?' Looking in the Cochrane Library fails to yield the 'believers'. In fact, we can quickly find a lot of unbelievers. Quackwatch considers such therapies to be dubious and it is easy to see why. Just as there is little reason to believe that low intensity, non-ionising electromagnetic radiation can cause significant harm to you, nor can it magically cure you of illnesses. Breakspear give a long list of things that 'it is believed' can be cured by the therapy.

But hold on, Monro appears to offer her own evidence on the site. The Breakspear hospital has conducted its own studies. I will repeat their study in nearly its entirety,

At Breakspear, we undertook research into electromagnetic field therapy using pulsed electromagnetic fields. Our small scale test was to assess whether patients, after undergoing pulsed magnetic therapy, would react to foods with the same intensity as previously experienced.

The first step was to conduct the ALCAT blood test for sensitivities on each of the 5 patients. This involved taking a blood sample and sending it to the AMTL Corp laboratories for evaluation on the 100 foods on the food panel. We then exposed the 5 patients to 1 hour’s treatment on our Magnoter D26 and conducted a second ALCAT test on each of the 5 patients. We continued to treat the patients with the pulsed magnetic therapy for 1 hour per day for 1 week and then repeated the ALCAT test for the third and final time.

Of the 5 patients tested, the results for Patient E were not able to be interpreted. The results of the panel of 100 foods for the 4 interpreted patients are as follows:

Patient A— initially reacted to 25 of 100 foods. After 1 hour’s treatment, the number of reactive foods was reduced to 22. After 1 week of therapy, the number of reactive foods was reduced to 11 out of 100.

Patient B— initially reacted to 30 of 100 foods. After 1 hour’s treatment, the number of reactive foods was reduced to 21. After 1 week of therapy, the number of reactive foods was reduced to 7 out of 100.

Patient C— initially reacted to 22 of 100 foods. After 1 hour’s treatment, the number of reactive foods was reduced to 14. After 1 week of therapy, the number of reactive foods was reduced to 9 out of 100.

Patient D— initially reacted to 11 of 100 foods. After 1 hour’s treatment, the number of reactive foods increased to 12. After 1 week of therapy, the number of reactive foods increased to 16 out of 100. We hypothesise that Patient D had developed a viral infection between the post and final tests, which may explain
the lack of improvement measured.

The results clearly show that 3 of the 4 patients show a remarkable improvement on the ALCAT results after receiving electromagnetic therapy.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Stop it. You are killing me.

Calm down. Let's pull this apart. It won't take long. Firstly, there is no control group. We have nothing to compare these patients against. How do we know any 'improvements' were due to the therapy? Next, drawing conclusions from four patients is extremely risky. Drawing conclusions from such small numbers might even make Andrew Wakefield blush. If the ALCAT diagnostic test is not good, then we might just be seeing random noise. The ALCAT test might just be giving out random results for all we know.

To claim that 75% of patients might show 'remarkable improvements' just cannot be justified from this study. It is nonsense and it is difficult to believe that it is serious. This study is marketing blurb designed to pull in punters.

What is interesting is the device used to do the treatment, the impressive sounding Magnoter D26. At first glance, it looks like a typical hospital gurney with a wide plastic hoop stuck on top. Plug it into a box with some dials on it and you have a complete healing system. The device has visual echoes of certain diagnostic imaging kit found in hospitals. It might look the part, but is it actually doing anything?

The device appears to be manufactured by a Polish company called MARP Medical Electronics Ltd. The company makes devices that claim to offer 'electrotherapy, magnetictherapy and laser therapy'. There are no claims on their site for what conditions these therapies may be appropriate. Magnetotherapy is listed as an 'unnaturalistic method' by Quackwatch. I have said before that magnetic therapies are almost undoubtedly quackery. So, what is this device doing? A Google search reveals a lot of Polish web sites with the Breakspear featuring prominently in English search results. Not widely used then. The whole concept of magnetic therapy is highly doubtful. Since we have little idea of what any biological mechanism might be for healing, then any therapy protocols applied (field strength, frequency, duration etc.) are just plain guess work. With the sort of 'clinical trials' mentioned above as our best evidence, then the therapy is being given arbitrarily. No wonder it is considered plain old quackery.

But what about the 'results' above where food intolerances appear to decrease in 3 patients? The ALCAT machine needs looking at. Well, an NHS web site says that 'no study has ever shown the test to be accurate'. A published article from the University of Zurich concluded 'results are not reproducible when subject to rigorous testing and do not correlate with clinical evidence of allergy'. Those South African vitamin pill pushers, Bioharmony, recommend it and say that the ALCAT is recommended by Patrick Holford. I think that is all the evidence we need to know that the technique is utter rubbish.

So, we have a therapeutic technique that is widely associated with quackery, treating illnesses that are not always widely recognised, using diagnostic techniques that are unreliable and based on laughable clinical evidence of efficacy. Its difficult to call it anything other than quackery.

Breakspear themselves give an excuse as to why there is no better evidence,

Since most of the patients fund their own treatment, it would not be appropriate to provide placebo treatments or other comparative treatments that our medical team do not consider to be the most appropriate clinical management for their patients.

In other words, clinical trials might interrupt the flow of cash from patients and risk proving the technique inadequate.

I am not the first to question the treatments on offer at the Breakspear. The University of Birmingham Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility (ARIF) have their own concerns and I will discuss these in a later post.

Interestingly, in 1990 Granada Television's 'World in Action' programme produced a documentary called 'the Allergy Business'. It focused on the activities of Dr Monro and the Breakspear hospital and said,

The Breakspear Allergy Hospital in Hertfordshire has been the subject of allegations of wrong diagnosis, useless treatment and a death following the failure of treatments. It is run by Dr Jean Monro who charges extortionate fees for bizarre treatments.

The programme was so damaging that the hospital shut down for a while. Dr Monro sued Granada and they had to apologize four years later for suggesting that Dr Monro took "wrongful advantage of her patients' vulnerability". Their other charges stood. I guess that attributing motives is always hard. Dr Monro might truly believe that her treatments work and are in the best interest of her private patients, even if others find that view is hard to support.

Nearly twenty years later, the Breakspear is still offering the same sort of unorthodox treatments to privately paying customers. Some placebo effect might be forthcoming for placebo responsive conditions. But is this worth thousands of pounds? A new class of prospective customers is now emerging in terms of electrosensitivity sufferers. Without any clinical diagnosis available for this condition, any understanding of what might relieve it and the best evidence to date suggesting it is psychological in origin, it is the perfect condition where you might take wrongful advantage of a patients vulnerability.

Labels: Breakspear Hospital, electromagnetic quackery

 

Dr George Carlo is an interesting character. Founder of the Safe Wireless Initiative in the US, he is the leading thinker behind a lot of the concerns about the dangers of mobiles and Wi-Fi.

The campaigners in the UK are in lurve with him. Sites like Electrosentivity-UK worship him. Mast Sanity too. And the EM-Radiation Research Trust.

What appears to be a common thread in nearly all the electrosensitvity sites is their willingness to make money from sufferers, take money from questionable health product sources, or promote suspect products or cures. We have Powerwatch and their sister sites selling metalic wallpaper; EM-Research and their magnetic healing products. And recently, we have had Rod Read from ES-UK highlighting some strange new treatments for sufferers. Even Mast Sanity appear to have fallen for Clarins quack anti-EMF face spray.

And now, it looks as if Dr George Carlo is putting his name behind a whole host of funny looking products. He as formed a 'strategic alliance' with BOIPRO technology to help electrosensitivity sufferers.

The delights that this company sells include,

BIOPRO Cell Chip - personal anti-EMF boxes
$34.95

BIOPRO’s Cell Chip combines the benefits of two powerful, innovative and scientifically substantiated technologies: BIOPRO’s patented noise field nano-technology MRET (Molecular Resonance Effect Technology), and its proprietary subtle energy innovation ERT (Energy Resonance Technology). Individually and collectively, these cutting-edge technologies offer a groundbreaking and effective way to deal with the cumulative stress associated with living in today’s electronic environment.

BIOLife Pendant
$269

The future of body-worn applications to combat life's stressors, such as electropollution, and many others. Powered by BIOPRO's very own ERTTM Technology, the BioLife Pendant proudly continues BIOPRO's tradition of bringing a "A New Generation of Wellness Solutions" to a world in need of progressive change.

and of course,

BIOProduce Fruit Berry Veggie - supplements!!
$60

BioProduce is a cutting-edge, highly concentrated whole food supplement bursting with the amazing health benefits of Mother Nature’s most life-enhancing fruits and vegetables. Power-packed with natural food actives, BioProduce's unique formulations work synergistically in the body’s cells to ensure you and your family receive the essential nutrients for total well being.

Plus, the hugely profitable,

iWater - energetically enhanced liquids.
$927

A complete system designed to maximize the effective use of iWater in your home and on the go. The iWater system contains our breakthrough iWater Activator andPitcher, which allows you to structure all the water you use in your home and store it at the same time.

I am in the wrong business.

.

Labels: electromagnetic quackery

 

Maybe we are witnessing the death throes of the MMR controversy. The arguments that autism is caused by the triple-jab have been shown to be without merit and only the foaming go on about mercury in vaccines anymore (MMR never had any mercury in it). Andrew Wakefield is scrabbling with his last gasp of PR before his GMC disciplinary meeting. Undoubtley, the die-hard campaigners will see a cover up and conspiracy, but there is evidence now that other autism cuplrits are being sought.

Enter the electrosensivity lobby. I have stated my worry before that the organisations that supposedly support people who claim to be electrosensitive are doing their supporters a disservice by not being open minded to the causes of the problem. Ignoring science, or being selective about it, will open a multi-dimensional portal into an evil world of quackery. We have seen innocent Independent journalists already succumbing to fraudsters and quacks. Next up, is electrosensitivity regular Sarah Dacre.

Sarah has found meaning in her illnesses by blaming electromagnetic radiation. She was told that radio waves are the cause of her suffering by an 'expert' in flower esscences. She has been ably supported in that conclusion by Rod Read of electrosensitivity.org.uk. Rod goes a bit potty if you suggest that Sarah's illness has to do with anything other than radio waves. The delusions are re-inforced.

And now Sarah is reporting on Rod Read's pages that a new 'Pilot Treatment' has been found for her illness.

Dr George Carlo and Tamara Mariea are preparing to conduct a one month pilot ES/EHS treatment for 3/4 EHS in late October/November 2007. The Internal Balance clinic is located in Franklin, Tennessee.

The treatment protocol working on the degree of membrane sensitivity syndrome exhibited by each individual, is being written up currently and will be circulated to any interested participants. The costs will include accommodation, travel and clinicians and tests.

Dr George Carlo is well known in this field. He is prominent in supporting organisations that push the idea that mobile phones and Wi-Fi cause ill health. See him with some MPs here.

Dr. George Carlo, Ph.D, M.S., J.D, is a public health scientist, epidemiologist, lawyer, and the founder of the Science and Public Policy Institute.

A scientist and a lawyer! An interesting combination when litigation starts. You may remember him when he got angry at Ben 'Andrew' Goldacre's comments on the electrosensitivity lobby.

Anyway. Tamara Mariea CCN, CERCA (picture above) is new to us. Her web site shows she is working with Dr Carlo on a (as yet unpublished) paper on links between electromagnetic radiation and autism. Her ideas are as follows:

Although Mariea believes that autism is a complicated condition that must have several factors at play for a child to fall to this diagnosis, she does believe that the three largest factors at play are:

• Genetically determined detoxification capacity,
• Early insult to immune system via contaminated vaccines and
• Being born with high levels of toxic burden and into a technologically advanced society riddled with ever increasing levels of radiation.

These are the key areas for research regarding the cause and etiology of autism spectrum disorders. Perhaps the genetic mutations that are being discovered in autism research are created through the DNA damage from radiation emitting devices used by families and in the households of ever member of our global society.

So there you have it. MMR is not enough anymore. You have to have some 'vaccine damage' plus DNA damage from mobiles and Wi-Fi, and a poor ability to 'detoxify'.

Tamara is a nutritionist. That is what her certifcates say, proudly displayed on the web. Athought, the certifying body of her certificates (Clinical Nutrition Certification Board (CNCB))has been described as 'questionable' and 'promoters of highly dubious practices' by QuackWatch.

She also has the letters CERCA after her name. This stands for 'Certified Electromagnetic Radiation Safety Advisor'. A quick search reveals that in order to gain these prestigious letters after your name you have to answer 45 multiple guess questions set by Dr George Carlo, and get 80% right. I hope George, her collaborator, was not too harsh on her.

So, Sarah Dacre is going over to Tennessee for some detox of toxic heavy metals, nutritional advice no doubt, and other 'therapeutic interventions to detoxify these trapped toxins from the body'.

The Internal Balance, Inc. studio is outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment that opens and detoxifies the body, or pulls the toxins that are negatively affecting people’s health, out of their bodies. Often when children see the studio for the first time they think it looks like a place where astronauts might hang out.

And I thought astronauts hang out in bars like the rest of us. Or at least those without restraining orders.

For Sarah though, she has a problem. Travelling all that way, surrounded by airport Wi-Fi, passenger mobile phones and aircraft electronics could be very debilitating. Luckily, George and Tamara have thought of that one. They say,

The 8 hour journey and airport routine is a challenge but Dr Carlo/ Ms Mariea are to consult NASA for their best recommendations.

The little black duck is speechless. But I too must consult NASA next time I have some tricky travel plans.

.

Labels: electromagnetic quackery, MMR, nutritionist

 

A few weeks ago, I pointed out that some of the science on the Powerwatch site appeared to be significantly less than convincing about the link between mobiles, WiFi and ill health. I also pointed out that Powerwatch had a very close relationship with another company called EMFields.org. Basically, both companies domains were registered to Alistair Philips of Powerwatch. I was concerned that the commercial interests of selling anti-EMR gear may be making it hard for the organisation(s) to fairly appraise the available evidence on harm from EMR. For example, there is still little discussion of the large number of provocation studies that appear to suggest that electrosensitivity has nothing to do with EMR exposure.

It met with a lot of combative criticism from Powerwatch.

For example, Graham Philips said on my blog...

Powerwatch and EMFields have been linked by many, and it's not something we've (on either side) ever denied. I wasn't aware that it was supposed to be a secret?

That appears to be somewhat contradicted by what they say on their own website now...

Products previously available from Powerwatch are now available from http://www.emfields.org/, and they have kindly agreed to process our subscriptions.

Powerwatch has, for some considerable time, been accused by people from offical [sic] and unofficial bodies of deliberately scare-mongering in order to make money selling things to the public. Making money has never been a motive behind Powerwatch, although we obviously have to cover overheads including staff time even though much of that is freely given.

As a result, Powerwatch is now concentrating on the EMF and health science debate and the science and politics behind the relevant media news reports which are often misleading. Powerwatch will be extending its new website comment columns and will be inviting contributions from various people. Its basic information will continue to be free of charge and the topics and detail in the subscription service documents will be greatly extended. The small subscription helps towards our costs which are considerable. Some of the profit from the EMFields trading is donated to Powerwatch in the form of staff time. Donations towards the work of Powerwatch are welcome.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this change may cause you.

It was so kind of them to process the subscriptions, wasn't it? And so generous to put some money and time back into Powerwatch for marketing education purposes.

Still no mention of the link between the two companies?

Labels: electromagnetic quackery

 

I've been writing rather a lot recently about the quackery that surrounds the whole question of whether electromagnetic emissions are harming our health. Apologies. But it is quite interesting to witness a new form of quackery being born. What has been interesting so far is how the alternative medicine camp have been jumping in on the scare and offering all sorts of bonkers products, along with their potty theories about the harm caused and pet theories of how to 'heal'.

Most of these quacks have been fairly small business affairs, but quackery is by no means limited to cottage traders. Big money is just as keen to fleece money from the unwary. Look at some of the biggest UK companies like Boots the Chemist and their range of quack products. Clarins, the huge French cosmetics company, is already trying to make money from the fear of radio waves with daft, pseudoscientific products.

So, the ever more bonkers Independent introduces us to Exradia - a new company start up, offering patented ways of protecting us from the 'harm' that is caused by mobile phones. They have a product called the Wi-Guard. Nice. Unlike, some of the other outfits involved in this scam, Exradia are doing a 'proper job', with lots of money spent on their web site, graphic design and product marketing.

The company has been set up by people with apparent City credentials. Their chairman, Asher Gratt, sold a telecoms business to British Gas for many millions. Their CEO, James Fintain Lawler, was CFO at Xerox EMEA. Other executives brought in represent a team ready for large scale global logistics, distribution and partner channel sales. They mean business.

The basic premise behind the business is that they have developed a mobile phone battery that is allegedly capable of making the electromagnetic emissions from a mobile 'harmless'. I will explain a little more about how the battery supposedly works in a moment, but it is worth reflecting on their business model first. Exradia, although making a nod to retail sales, are much more interested in striking deals with mobile phone manufacturers and operators. The reason for this is obvious. There are more mobile phones in the UK than people now (many people have more than one phone) and they replace their phones every 12-18 months. New phones need new batteries and if that battery is an Exradia magic battery then the total annual revenues would be approaching a billion pounds (assuming the battery sold at full retail value of about £30). Scale that business across Europe and you are talking serious wonga.

The trick is of course to persuade the Nokias, Sony Ericssons, and LGs to use your magic battery. And this is where Exradia are laying on the fear. Their corporate presentation compares the dangers of mobile phones to the dangers of smoking. "Look what has happened to the tobacco companies with all their law suits. Do you want the same thing to happen to you?". If the handset manufacturers take the precaution of installing 'protective' batteries then they can be seen to be taking their customers' concerns seriously and so mitigate the risk of future potential claims.

Guy Kewney in the Register writes that this might be the mobile phone industry equivalent of the airlines' life jacket. Guy points out that the life jacket has not saved a single life, but an airline would be mad not to push them under the seat. Think of the law suits again. However, life jackets have the potential to really save lives and no one doubts that. But does this battery save lives? Should the mobile phone manufacturers put one in just to be on the safe side? Or, is this more akin to putting a flying carpet under the seat of every passenger?

However, this is not your typical vitamin pill sales person selling the odd fraudulent qlink pendant. This is a business being done by people who know the value of a scalable and leveraged business model, who understand the value of a patent and are prepared to take a risk. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that this is also a business being run by people who don't understand science. None of the executives on the web site appear keen to flaunt any science credentials.

The big question is then is how this new technology is supposed to work? There is nothing quite so crass as the qlink's appeal to quantum theory, or Subtle Field Technologies clueless flaunting of its 'holograph field'. Instead their web site leads to lots of dense explanations and sciencey looking research papers explaining how we are being harmed and how we can be saved. The only problem is that its a pretty incoherent set of explanations.

Let's do a one minute reminder of what we are supposedly trying to protect ourselves from. First, there are the people who claim to be electrosensitive, that is they suffer a range of symptoms, including headaches, lethargy and concentration problems, when they are in proximity to Wi-Fi routers and mobile phones. But it is almost certain now, due to the large numbers of studies done, that the radio waves from these devices have nothing to do with their symptoms. More alarmingly are reports of electromagnetic waves causing cancer. The best evidence to date shows that there may be a slight risk from overhead power cables of causing leukemia in children. The evidence is not conclusive and there may well be evidence that the extra cancers have nothing to do with magnetic fields. But if these findings are confirmed, then it would still only correspond to an extra death per year.

So, what do Exradia say they are doing science wise? Apparently, their sister company in the US explains that the harm does not come from the radio emissions from the handset, but the background low frequency (ELF) emissions from the battery and electronics. This would explain why all the studies flaunted by the company appear to be of mains frequency emissions, i.e. 50 or 60 Hz. This is far below the frequency range of Wi-Fi and mobiles. The company explains how our bodies are used to being in noisy background ELF. Electronic devices introduce 'coherent' signals that can apparently jiggle around with our cells mechanics. Introduce another random field and the coherence is lost and our cells are safe. The magic battery does just this - allegedly.

It all sounds very technical and scientific but this is fringe science stuff. We have previously seen how this sort of 'subtle effect' is attracting all sort of quack devotees. The company are keen to show how the US military developed this technology (always produces loud clanging sounds on the quackometer) and how many studies are backing this up. Unfortunately, as far as I can see the studies appear to be the usual array of irrelevant, incoherent and surrogate studies that litter this space. What is more, one of the names that appears very frequently, Theodore Litowitz, also appears to be a patent holder in this technology. It all raises so many questions. If the main radio frequencies are not doing the harm, then what are all the anti-mobile campaigners banging on about? If is is the 50Hz emissions that muck around with our cells, why concentrate on phones when the mains is dumping out this stuff? The problem is that the 'coherence' theory of electromagnetic harm is only matched by the incoherence of their explanations. Having people write papers is one thing. Getting it all to fit into consilient science is another.

I hope the due diligence the Exradia investors did on the business model was better than the due diligence done on the science. I just cannot see how a company like Nokia would want to get involved. Producing mobile phones is all about cramming as many features as possible into a trendy shell with a small bill of materials and then flogging this as cheaply as possible to the mobile phone operators like Vodafone. Locking yourself into a quirky battery company makes no sense. Licensing the technology from them just adds cost to manufacturing. This is going to be a hard sell, especially when the Nokia engineers start scratching their heads over it. Battery life is a pressing limitation on the development of mobile technology and features. Will manufacturers and their customers really accept diminished battery life in return for nebulous benefits? Exradia are betting they will. Their site videos suggest their customers will. But asking people on the street if they want to be safer is a bit like asking them if they want free beer. Reality may well be different.

My guess is that Exradia executives will spend a futile Summer camped in Sweden and Finland and, when it starts getting cold, the push into retail sales will begin. Even then, flogging magic batteries to the public is going to be hard work. It is not like the qlink people who can glue any old electronic component into a pretty resin case and make a mint. Making mobile phone batteries in itself is complex technical business without the bother of the 'special incoherence chip'. There are hundreds of variants and the top sellers change on a quarterly basis. You are going to have to run hard to keep up and will have to flog hundreds of thousands to make the whole effort worthwhile.

Maybe, a lower key and even profitable strategy will be producing commercial and domestic 'incoherence spreader' boxes for the office and home. Tackle your Wi-Fi, mobile and mains all in one go. I think it will be fun watching this one.

*************************************************************************
Update

Yes, it has been fun watching this one and I have written a follow up here: Exradia: Angels or Demons?

Labels: electromagnetic quackery, exradia

 

Yes, a deliberately provocative title for this blog entry. The distressing and puzzling illness of anorexia is very real. We see people convinced that their body is repulsive and overweight and they diet their way into oblivion. We feel helpless in the face of the strength of their conviction that something is wrong with their bodies. From the outside of the illness, it is clear that their beliefs are an integral and delusional part of the illness. If someone was to exploit the illness by selling diet pills, slimming aids or by setting up pro-anorexia web sites, we would be naturally alarmed, concerned and condemning.


Now, electrosensitivity, the belief that radio waves are harming your health, looks like it is also one of these rather strange illnesses that may well start in the brain. If it does not start in the brain, then it shows how many symptoms from various illnesses can be greatly affected by your beliefs about the causes of those illnesses. The placebo and nocebo effects work solely on this principle. The people who describe themselves as electrosensitive obviously suffer from quite debilitating symptoms and their lives are quite devastated by their illness, whatever the cause. However, the best evidence to date suggests that the symptoms have little to do with the real presence of radio-waves, but only by the belief that radio-waves are causing their symptoms. Multiple, repeated studies show this to be true.

With anorexics, the obviousness of their central delusion is plain for all to see. With electrosensitives, a little more thought and experiment is required. After all, many of us suffer from debilitating symptoms from invisible influences in our environments. Ask a hay fever sufferer what it is like to be struck down by your next door neighbour mowing their lawn. But, there are good reasons to believe that radio-waves just cannot cause anything like the symptoms described. Even the advocates of electrosensitivity admit that the energies involved are just too small for direct effects, and so have to rely on 'subtle' and very controversial alternative mechanisms from 'pulsed' radio emitters. There is scant evidence so far that such emissions are harmful to humans.

Meanwhile, the media friendly story that normal domestic appliances are harming us is giving quacks a whole new marketing opportunity. There is a rising exploitation of this condition in the media, as it sells good copy. The quackometer news analysis project was started after a batty story in the Independent on Sunday a year ago. The last fortnight has seen a crescendo of noise with the derisory Panorama on the BBC. But the Independent has now just about topped it.

A story today tells how electrosensitivity sufferer, and Independent reporter, Julia Stephenson, has had her symptoms diagnosed and treated by a range of quacks. It reads like a spoof, but the story is deadly serious. Whatever Julia is suffering from, the result is a terrible story of exploitation by a range of quacks and charlatans. We ought to be alarmed and appalled. The editors of the Independent ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Julia was diagnosed by a naturopath, and has subsequently been sold a whole load of quack junk to 'help' the condition. The Independent tells us that "many doctors are now convinced that this powerful technology is storing up huge problems for our future health." However, the only doctor quoted in the article is a Dr Nicole de Canha.

Unfortunately, it appears that Dr Canha is not a medical doctor, as you might expect, but has a 'PhD' in Homoeopathy. Now, I am not aware of any accredited university in the UK that would have the cheek to offer such an award. (I am sure we shall find out where that came from in due course). It would appear from her list of qualifications that she is a fully paid up quack and her score of 5 Canards is probably an underestimate. This is not the sort of person you would want to diagnose a rather new and difficult new illness, let alone be a quoted authority on such matters.

The Independent article gets worse in that it pretty much endorses the fraudulent qlink pendant and introduces us to new and emerging quack products. Worst, is the advertisement for www.subtlefieldtechnologies.com, a company that sells wall warts that supposedly cancel out all the bad EMF in your room. There is no physical way these devices could help human health and no evidence that they do. What a big boost they have got from the newspaper! The subtle field technologies devices are made by a Gary Johnson who calls himself an engineer and a homeopath. His web page also says he is an acupuncturist. The boxes claim to be,

programmed harmonising units that produce a holograph field, that is amplified through an internal aerial system. This protection field protects the human system from the negative effects of electro magnetic radiation/pulsed transmissions/EMF's emanating from man made, or natural sources.

This is of course nonsense. The boxes look more like Maplins hobby electronics boxes with some stickers on. Somehow, this homeopathist has created a whole new world of holographic electronics.

Organisations to help anorexics exist and do good work. Electrosensitives also have their 'support' organisations too, like Powerwatch and Electrosensitives-UK. However, these organisations vehemently deny the possibility of the illness being unphysical in nature. Protecting their supporters and members from quacks ought to be top priority. If they care about getting their members better, they ought to be giving clear and unequivocal advice to avoid quack product manufacturers to help them from being exploited in their time of need.

Do we hear such a cry? Will the Independent story and the products it recommends be condemned by such campaigners as Rod of ES-UK? I'm not holding my breath.

Labels: electromagnetic quackery, qlink

 

So, with all this hot air blowing around about the inevitability of our imminent deaths due to mobiles and Wi-Fi, it is no surprise that nutrient supplement salesman Patrick Holford starts using his extensive physics knowledge to keep us safe from the evils of the 'New Big Pharma', the mobile-wifi-EMR conspiracy of 'Vested Interests'. Patrick rids his home of Wi-Fi and in doing so starts a new experiment in the dangers of EMR - but that is to come.

Patrick has sent his latest missive from 100% Health e-news, entitled 'Wi-Fi Health Warnings: Is Your Broadband Harming Your Health?'. The short answer ought to be of course, 'No', but instead Patrick subjects his subscribers to his flaky knowledge of electromagnetic theory. Let's pull his email apart...

Read the rest of this article at HolfordWatch.info.

Labels: electromagnetic quackery, Patrick Holford

 

Well, today's news has had lots of Wi-Fi scares being reported. Tonight's Panorama is going to look at the 'dangers' of bringing Wi-Fi into schools. Let's wait to see what they have to say, but early reports do not bode well as they are claiming that their 'independent tests' showed WiFi produces EM levels three times higher than mobile phone masts. It is difficult to think up a more meaningless statement. But such is the quality of debate at the moment in the hysteria being whipped up about the dangers of all things electrical. Will Panorama fuel or dampen the flames? We shall see.

But the news has prompted me to do a little more looking at the subject, and in particular, one campaign group that I have not looked at before, the EM-Radiation Research Trust. Campaign groups, like this one, crop up regularly and appear to be behind the spread of fears around mobile phones and radiation. The quackometer has already looked at Powerwatch and how it is selective in its use of evidence, and Electrosensitivity-UK and its rather shrill condemnation of anyone who dares to suggest that electrosensitivity symptoms might not be caused by radiation

The Radiation Research Trust is an interesting one though, in that it appears to have the support of several members of parliament and an MEP. The trustees of the charity include Andrew Mitchell, Conservative MP for Sutton Coldfield, Mark Oaten, MP for Winchester, Dr Ian Gibson, Labour MP for Norwich North and MEP Dr Caroline Lucas, of the Green Party. Its nice to know from the start that I cannot be accused of political bias for showing how this rabble of politicians has got itself involved with quackery. An organisation that has such cross-party support has surely has mustered some important clout and so it is worth delving a little deeper in Radiation Research to see what they are up to.

So, who are the other trustees and movers within the charity?

We have an Eileen O'Connor who contracted breast cancer whilst living close to a phone mast. How she knows the mast was the cause of her illness is not clear. But it looks like one of those modern equivalents of the village witch hunts. Everything from villagers' nose bleeds, headaches to cancer is blamed on the mast. Now, cancer clusters do happen, even just by chance. When clusters are spotted it is natural to look for a cause, whether it be the nuclear power station, mobile mast or old woman living with a black cat. It is easy to jump to the wrong conclusion here and personal testimony, although heartfelt, should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Next, we have Brian Stein, Chief Executive of Samworth Brothers Ltd., manufacturer of motorway service station staple, the truly miraculous Ginsters range of pasties. Brian suffers from electro-hypersensitivity and, as we have seen, by the very nature of the problem, the last people to have broad opinions about the causes of the condition are the suffers themselves. I wonder if Mr Stein refuses to microwave his pasties?

Mike Bell is the chairman of the organisation and is often seen reporting the groups views to HPA committees and the media. The only scientist in the group is Dr. Gerard Hyland, honorary associate fellow of Warwick University. Having a scientist is undoubtedly good as it gives credibility to the charity and a voice of authority.

Now, Dr Hyland is the poster pin-up boy of the electrosensitivity lobby as he is doing something most important for them. The problem with showing that Wi-Fi and mobile phones are dangerous is two-fold: first, the evidence for the range of problems associated with EM-fields is in many areas non-existent, and in others circumstantial and incoherent; the second, that there is little plausibility of non-ionising radiation causing the range of problems reported at the levels found in domestic settings. The 'plausibility problem' causes many scientists to dismiss the claims of the lobby out of hand. It places a strong burden of evidence on those making the claims and the evidence is not convincing.

So, Dr Hyland is working on the plausibility problem. Solving this plausibility gap is essential if the anti-Wi-Fi lobby is to make a convincing case. However, the idea that radiation from a Wi-Fi transmitter can cause damaging localised heating in brains and bodies is easily discounted - the emitted powers are usually far too small to have any meaningful effect. Hyland, is working on so-called 'non-thermal' explanations. An example of a non-thermal effect of a mobile phone is the stuttering interference you hear on your car radio. This 'pulsed' radiation does not heat the radio, but interferes with the electronic signals inside. If it can do this to a radio, can it do the same to the 'electrical' parts of the human body? That is essentially the non-thermal pulsed effect theory and it has been leaped upon by the anti-mobile, anti-wi-fi, anti-hi-fi lobby.

But, EM simply interfering with your neurons is not enough for plausibility. It is quite clear that mobiles do not induce something like epileptic fits, so a simplistic radio-interference type model is not enough. No, Dr Hyland, and similar researchers, propose that something much more subtle is going on at the cellular level, causing problems at the microscopic scale. And this is where it all starts to get a little strange.

One starts to get a sense of unease when Dr Hyland insists that his research is looking at 'aliveness', somehow implying that the fact that cells are alive is overlooked by other researchers. To the quackometer, this missing 'aliveness' starts looking like the talk of new-agers or energy quacks with their bonkers 'subtle energies', not that of a serious researcher. Dr Hyland comes from a theoretical physics background so we might forgive for strange biological language. However, a little more delving adds to the concerns. Dr Hyland is now retired from Warwick and has been for a while. But, his effort appears to be focused with a group called the International Institute of Biophysics based in Neuss-Holzheim, Germany.

The institute is researching into something called biophoton emission. This effect is supposedly different from bioluminescence, where bright light is created by living cells in creatures like fireflies and deep sea creatures. Biophotons are 'ultraweak photon emission[s] from living systems'. These photons somehow transmit information 'within and between' cells. And so, here we start to see the necessity of biophotonics to the anti-mobile lobby - a tentative but plausible mechanism of how non-thermal radiation effects can interfere with cellular processes. Can Emsignals of the right frequency interfere with the 'coherence' of inter-cellular biophotonic emission? Only, the problem is that the whole concept of biophotonics is extremely controversial and is treated as 'fringe' by most researchers. Indeed, biophotonics carries the many tell-tale signs of classic pseudoscience and pathological science. It pits itself against well established science such as the 'central dogma of genetics', that cellular communication occurs through the DNA-RNA-protein transcription and translation mechanism. It suggests that 'Russian science' has been aware of this for many decades, and we in the West have not woken up to it yet. (Look up Lysenkoism to see the problem with this.) Its 'subtlety' and 'ultraweakness' means that it deals with effects at the limits of detectability, where noise and poor experimental set-up can wreak havoc with results and interpretations. (Look up N-rays for a comparison).

Worryingly, the research interests of people associated with the Institute starts to make the quackometer get a little jumpy. They include:

• holistic concepts and the understanding of consciousness


• schrödinger's definition of food quality


• biophoton field reflecting biological rhythms


• molecular basis of stress and the concept of self-healing


• self-healing and the principles in homeopathy


• studies and medical applications of biophotons especially in connection with acupuncture and cancer


• anatomical structure of acupuncture meridians and its physiological significance

and so on...

In fact, the whole concept of biophotons is used by all sorts of quacks, from Professor Dame Mossop's Phytobiophysics, to homeopaths and energy healers to add a veneer of (pseudo)science to their musings. Biophotonics is used as a one-size-fits-all, off the shelf explanation for all sorts of outlandish quackery. It is so 'subtle' and ill-defined that it can be moulded to explain any freakish health theory. Is this really the sort of company that the Radiation Research Trust wants to keep? Is this what the 'research' in their name refers to? If plausibility is what you are after, then surely mechanisms that share explanatory powers for homeopathy and cancer-busting acupuncture may well end up back-firing on you?

But the Radiation Research Trust's associations get a little worse.

The group makes a big play of thanking their Cornish sponsor, a company called Ecoflow, for their generous financial support. In a mind boggling twist of irony, the company that campaigns against the harmful effects of electromagnetic fields is supported by a company that manufactures and distributes magnetic healing products.

Amongst their products are the full range of quack and crank magnetic devices including magnetic bracelets, pet collars, water softeners, wine conditioners, car fuel conditioners, gas pipe energy enhancers and (of course) mobile phone protectors. In a satisfying inversion of the nutri-pill-peddler turned EM-crank (see Patrick Holford and his QLink pendants), these EM cranks also sell vitamin food supplements to help the magnets work better. No, its true. Follow the link.
Ecoflow reassure us that their products work though their patented 'Central Reverse Polarity' technology, which is not available elsewhere. I am reminded of the famous Doctor Who line, '"reverse the polarity of the neutron flow". Can you physicists reading this please stop laughing now? You are annoying the rest of us.

The company works through recruited independent sales agents who are given training in their products. One little insight is how they sell their fuel enhancer magnets. According to one report, they get their mark to see how long they can hold their hand over a gas lighter flame, with and without the magnet applied to the gas lighter. This is a fairly straightforward con. Pain is highly suggestible and as a result is very placebo responsive. Give someone the idea that a flame will hurt more than before and it will. A much more objective and easy way to demonstrate that a flame is hotter when a magnet is attached is by using a thermometer. But this company chooses Derren Brown style conjuring tricks.

As you might expect, Ecoflow has been slapped hard by the Advertising Standards Authority for its unsupported claims and sales approach.

So, why do MPs and MEPs lend their support to this charity? Maybe, if you live in their constituencies you could write to them and ask why they are wasting their parliamentary time on such matters. Maybe our politicians like dealing with frightening things that can't be detected like harmful wi-fi rays and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. It saves having to deal with real and pressing problems like poverty, poor education and how to organise access to health care without destroying it in continuous re-organisations.

Email addresses below:

Mr Andrew Mitchell Sutton Coldfield

Mark Oaten Winchester

Dr Ian Gibson Norwich North

Dr Caroline Lucas MEP South East

Let me know what they say.

Labels: electromagnetic quackery, magnets, pseudoscience

 

I have recently been rather drawn into the world of electrosenstivity and found that passions run high. But loudness of voices and strength of convictions rarely match closely to soundness of argument. Indeed, high voices, closed minds and poor debate are a good indicator that quackery might be at work.

I have been quite critical of those that support electrosensitivity suffers for being so hostile to the idea that people who believe that their ill health is due to Wi-Fi and mobiles may be suffering from psychological problems, or just be plain wrong in their self-diagnosis. Roderick, who runs Eletrosensitivity UK, is particularly shrill at those who put forward psychological explanations of some of the symptoms. He appears to believe that such possibilities somehow diminish his supporters even though their illness would be just as real, no matter what the cause.

Even if some people were found to really be affected by electromagnetic radiation (the possibility is there) does that mean that all people reporting symptoms are suffering because of this? It is a good bet that some, if not all, may well be suffering from some sort of neurosis. Does Roderick want to write these people off? Compassion alone, requires a more open minded approach.

Powerwatch, the other main site dealing with this issue, has a similar, if not quite so hysterical, approach. There is a characteristic clinging to any evidence, no matter how circumstantial, to support the idea that electromagnetic radiation is very bad for us. Little balance or careful analysis appears to take place. A hundred pieces of research with flawed conclusions, unrepeatable results, or out-of-context data, does not add up to a strong case.

Let's look at just one example from a screaming headline in the Daily Mail: Mobile phone masts blamed over the vanishing sparrows. It reports a Belgian study that shows a correlation between the number of sparrows in an area and the proximity to mobile phone masts. The closer to mast the lower the number of sparrows. And of course, there is instant blame from all quarters that mobile masts are killing our lovely garden sparrows.

But there is a big problem. According to the British Trust for Ornithology, sparrows have been in decline for many years. Here is a graph of their numbers...

Now, the sharp eyed amongst you will notice a few things. The decline started well before the mobile was invented and then appears to level off as mobile take-up was becoming near exponential. For completeness, here is another graph, showing growth in mobile phone usage, which undoubtedly correlates with environmental exposure to mast emissions.

Not a good correlation then. Something else is affecting the sparrows. The RSPB believe the decline is due to tidier gardens and better maintained housing which reduces nesting sites and availability of food. This is, at least, a plausible hypothesis.

But even when there is correlation we have to be cautious. Looking at the graph below, we can see that Buzzards have increased dramatically in the UK and the increase is a much closer fit to the growth of mobile phones?

Do mobile phone masts give buzzards super breeding powers? Is the correlation real? Maybe there are other factors at work, like masts providing ideal nesting places, or supplying dozens of dead sparrows for food, or maybe there is no real cause and effect at all. It could just be chance and unrelated.

So, what can explain the Belgian study? Well, one thing stands out is that the researchers do not appear to have considered other confounding factors.

A confounding factor in a study is a variable which is related to one or more of the variables defined in a study. A confounding factor may mask an actual association or falsely demonstrate an apparent association between the study variables where no real association between them exists. If confounding factors are not measured and considered, bias may result in the conclusion of the study.

So what confounding factors might there be? Maybe sites where mobile phones are put are not liked by sparrows. They may lack trees, nesting spaces, food or have higher human activity. The places carefully chosen to erect masts, may just not be good sparrow hanging-out places. Masts could be associated with problems for sparrows that have nothing to do with electric field strength. The conclusions from the research should be to look at more detail at some of these factors, not jump to conclusions about the harmful effects of electric fields from masts.

Sir Austin Bradford Hill wrote a paper 40 years ago that sets out the standards for looking at how to interpret such correlations. This must count as one of the most influential essays in medical history and is probably responsible for saving more lives than many of the drugs on the market today. Such is the power of pure reason. From the thoughts in this essay came the ability to discover real cause and effect relationships between environmental effects (such as mobile phone emissions) and health. It uncovered the dangers of smoking, the causes of many cancers and many occupational hazards.

The paper describes the tests you should apply to discover real relationships, and avoid drawing wrong conclusions from confounded or chance correlations. These tests include looking for the strength of the correlation, its consistency with other data, a clear dose-response relationship, plausibility, coherence and experimental confirmation. Ignore these tests and you will be led up the garden path.

The sparrow study does not have these things yet. More work could provide them. An experiment might help, such as setting up phone masts, with some operational and some not, and see the effect on local sparrow populations. This would be expensive, but would provide good confirming evidence. Should we be calling for more research?

It depends what your motives are. Do you want to find out why sparrows are declining? Or do you want to cling to any piece of evidence, no matter how poor and circumstantial, that might just support your convictions that mobile phones are killing us?

Labels: daily mail, electromagnetic quackery